Tuesday, October 27, 2015

We've had a lovely week in Oxford. We had a Zone Conference this week and a lot of it was focused on us as missionaries and our personal righteousness. I enjoyed it and interestingly a good portion of the conference was about Journal Writing so I was happy to have already received inspiration to write in my journal during General Conference.

Do you remember when I was talking about Monthly Goals a few weeks ago? Well I'm going to talk about them again. In most areas the missionaries plan their own goals although in preach My Gospel it says to plan goals with the ward mission leader. In some areas of the mission Monthly Goals are planned in Ward Council and they expand to more than just nonmembers. Well that is something the Stake President here wants to bring into every single ward in the Stake. Last Sunday during Ward Council our Bishop said that the next time the council met he wanted to build a ward mission plan. After church we met with him to brainstorm a few ideas and we really didn't come away with too many action items but we did introduce monthly goals with him and we also determined to meet with every Auxiliary leader individually and talk about what they wanted to see in the ward mission plan. We're trying to make a big push to help the ward leaders see how simple, easy and effective it would be to plan monthly goals. We've been correlating almost every night with our Zone Leaders to try and figure out how to best move forward and I'm grateful for their direction.

We had an awesome lesson with a family about missionary work. We read a few stories about missionary work from the children's book of Mormon to Keegan and it was amazing to see the change in him. Before his baptism he struggled a lot to read but during our lesson he was actively volunteering to read and had an amazing retention of what he read. I remembered during his confirmation that I blessed him to develop a love for reading and I was happy to see that coming to pass. The best part was that at the end of the lesson everybody present had a specific person that they planned to invite to meet with us that week! Booyah! It was probably the best lesson I've ever had regarding missionary work and I feel like a lot of work will come from that commitment that we extended. We are going to change lives in that little next of the woods they live in.

On Sunday night we went to visit with a guy named Peter that we had given a Book of Mormon to a few weeks ago. We had an awesome discussion even though his beliefs were far from ours. He had many questions about what we believed and explanations about why our beliefs were wrong. I felt the Spirit though the entire time as Elder Whittle and I testified confidently regarding our doctrine. We withstood his opposition and answered his questions. At the end of our conversation we had committed him to pray and ask God if the Book of Mormon was true and I believe he'll keep that commitment. The hard part is his intent. It certainly seems to us that he plans to pray almost to confirm that the book is not true. We don't know his heart though and I have Faith in the Spirit. After all in Moroni 10 he says to pray and ask God if these things (referencing the Book of Mormon) are not true. So maybe our good friend Peter is actually doing it right.

Here's a picture with the two Elders I trained Elder Acosta and Elder Nixon

Chayo has been studying up on Seminary, after all he's getting to that age

So in Edson Whipple's Patriarchal blessing it says that his Priesthood is after the Order of Enoch. Weird right? have you ever heard that before in the church? It seemed like a strange thing but in the context of the rest of the blessing it seemed like a normal statement. Well I've been thinking about it and what it meant ever since I first read it and today I found a bit of an answer! I found it in scripture. It's in the JST of genesis chapter 14 and it helped me to make a lot of sense of things so I thought I'd just write home about that cuz it was cool.

Regarding the medical bracelet. It was actually a little big but some members had a leather punch so I just put another hole in it and now it fits perfectly. The wording is very legible and I'm sure it will make sense to a paramedic. Thank you.

1. What is a valuable lesson you learned from your companion this week? Have Faith. It's not the most specific but I'm fine with that.

2. What was the best thing you ate this week? Chili

3. What was the strangest thing you ate this week? Chili

4. Who spoke in church and what were the topics? It was the Primary Program this week

5. What could you use for Christmas this year? Wants and needs? I could use a humanatone and also a dentists chair. I have no wants.

6. Tell us about a time this week when you were feeling humbled. When we had dinner with the Stake President.

We had a chili cookoff this week and we were the judges. There were some really good ones and some really bad ones hence the answers to questions 2 and 3.

Also regarding the dentists chair. I know I've asked for it in times past but on Saturday we found this outside the house across the street from the oxford chapel, just something to think about

Have a lovely week and don't forget to offer up specific help to the missionaries in your area.

Also I've gotten a letter from different people five days in a row excluding Sunday! One of them was your Fall Pail of goodness so thank you for that Mom.

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Not the most expected thing but it happened and it happened during church so all the kids were running outside to play in it while parents tried to get their kids back inside so it was pretty funny.

We also had a baptism yesterday and it was kind of a big deal for us. His name is Keegan and he was a child of record. He's living with his grandparents who are semi active. His father is a member but is definitely not active. We've been teaching Keegan for about 3 months now trying to help him prepare for baptism. His dad came to the baptism as well as Keegan's cousin and her fiancé and neither of them were members. I'm pretty sure we will start teaching them so keep your eyes out for that one.

Just about everything went wrong in preparing for the baptism. We figured out while filling up the font that the hot water heater had broken... so we put together a team comprised of a member of the bishopric, the High Priests group Leader, the ward clerk and us and we started boiling water in the kitchen and began carting it into the font. We had all 8 burners going heating up water and we kept the process going for over two hours. About an hour into the work we realized the plug hadn't been put in properly and the water was actually leaking faster than we could fill it. So our champion ward clerk, brother Welles, took of his shoes and socks, rolled up his pants and sleeves and went into the font to tighten the plug. Now we had to fill it again with the freezing water and much of our initial efforts had been wasted. We knew the water was going to be cold but we were hoping that we could take the edge off a bit. Keegan's Grandpa baptized him and people were genuinely concerned for his safety. Keegan was baptized and he took it like a champ, I'm pretty sure he was warmed by the spirit because he said he didn't feel too cold during the actual ordinance even though the water was very cold. It was pretty hectic but worth it all.

Heres a picture of the water being heated. After it was hot we would pour it into the cooler and then carry it into the font.

When we were travelling to the font from the sacrament room Keegan's Grandma asked me if I knew that Keegan wanted me to confirm him, well I didn't but that was ok, I told her that I had been asked to confirm people with less notice so not to worry. The confirmation went well and everything was dandy after that.

That was probably the highlight of the week and it was the culmination of a lot of hard work, it was not easy to teach Keegan he's a good kid but he's eight and doesn't have the greatest attention span but it was a good opportunity for me to get better at teaching kids.

--

Elder Trevon Turley

Also my scripture for this week is Romans 10 13-15

13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?

15 And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!

This is at our ward mission leaders house. These grapes are so good. Pretty much what I do every time I go there.

Monday, October 12, 2015

Life has been moving along pretty well. Once a month we plan and set goals. These goals are centered around people who we think have the ability to progress into becoming investigators, setting a baptismal date with them or even having someone baptized in the coming month. These goals help to plan our time and the hope is that we set them with revelation from God. At that point we treat the goal as though we received it from God and then we have a lot more drive to accomplish our goals! Well I've always struggled with setting time aside to ponder and pray about who the Lord would have us set as priority but leading into October I fasted and prayed many times about who we should set as goals and when it came time to finally put them down on paper Elder Whittle and I felt inspired about who to focus on. Already we're seeing miracles and I truly believe that we will meet every single goal because it was revealed unto us by revelation that our goals can and will be achieved.

One of our people we are focusing on is a man George. He requested a Bible from Mormon.org. We set him as a goal to become a new investigator this month. There were other people that seemed to have more potential especially because we'd never even met the guy, we just knew he wanted a Bible. Well upon visiting him one evening he gladly accepted a Bible and a Book of Mormon and he seemed very excited to read them both! He's fairly religious already and he wanted a bible so that he had something to read when he went to visit his native country Ghana. As of now he's not an investigator but he leaves on the 28th for Ghana so we have time to meet the goal but we're going to have to work hard to achieve it. Still I believe we will be able to help him.

Joe's family is doing pretty good! We actually weren't able to see them this week but surprisingly the whole family came to church! We knew Joe would be coming and that he might be bringing his children but the whole family showed up. They left quickly right after sacrament meeting but they still came to church. Their youngest son Michael is seven years old and he'd never sung a hymn in his life but he was singing proudly every single time we sang as a congregation. We have the primary program in two weeks and we're going to try and get the kids to participate in it.

For my ponderizing verse this week I decided to choose Alma29:9 it says

I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do notglory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy.

I thought it might be a good one for missionary work.

Alright well I think that's good enough, one of the things I felt prompted to do during General Conference was write in my journal so I've faithfully done that all week and it's made writing this email much easier.

I have a Wisdom tooth coming in. Only one and it's on my bottom right side, it doesn't hurt or anything but I figured I'd let you guys know. I'm not too sure what to do about it.

Monday, October 5, 2015

Well I've decided that the verse I'm going to ponderize this week is Philippians 4:11 it says

Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.

I'll tell you more about the pondering aspect next week.

This past week has been great! We've had a lot of member visits this week and they were all productive but the best part is that I am finally teaching a family! For the first time on the mission I taught the message of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ to an entire family! The father is a member but he hasn't been to church in years. His family from Idaho came out and visited him and brought him to church so that's how we got ahold of him. We had visited him twice hoping that his family would be there but they never were so we finally asked him when we could come over to teach his whole family. He gave us a time & we went. We asked him to offer a kneeling closing prayer at the end of the lesson. We figured it would be good for the family and it says to do that in preach my gospel but he said no and had Elder Whittle give the closing prayer. But overall the family has way more potential than they are willing to let on and we're totally going to help them come closer to Christ!

So we've had quite a bit of rain.

Conference was amazing! The best one for me yet. that's probably because I genuinely payed attention to every single talk for the first time in my life. It was thrilling to hear from the three new apostles. Elder Stevensons address was my favorite and it's probably because he quoted Preach My Gospel directly a few times. it made me happy to know that he knew it well enough to be able to quote it so flawlessly that it fit perfectly in with his address.

I also really enjoyed both of Elder Eyrings talks he's a great speaker and his stories were inspirational and applicable. After his talk I asked the Elders Quorum president if he was going to buy a truck, it was pretty funny.

Elder Lawrence's talk was fantastic about how versatile the spirit is. he came and visited our mission about a year ago so it was cool to see him again. He's from Tucson Arizona so he's definitely a great guy.

I received a lot of guidance on how to improve myself, ways to improve the work and I was thinking about a lot of people that we're working with that could benefit from hearing various talks. I'm already looking forward to the Ensign so I can read through all of them again and I'm excited for the next session of conference and all that I'll learn then.

I know that God instructs these men to lead and guide us. Have the days of miracles ceased? I say unto you Nay